Today is the day that this year’s edition of the World’s Largest Trivia Contest gets underway, celebrating it’s forty-fifth year. The team I play on, which has achieved its own modest level of notoriety will be enjoying an anniversary of its own, playing for the twenty-fifth time, a two-and-a-half decade span that I have a difficult time wrapping my head around. In that stretch, we’ve built up a lot of team lore, involving paddles and coconut heads and little alien puppets. It’s very possible that my favorite part of our team’s extensive iconography is the song “Come On Eileen,” the … Continue reading One for Friday: Mollie Donihe, “Come On Eileen (Cover)”

I wish my college radio station was well-stocked with Big Star records, but that was sadly not the case. Instead, I often had to settle for their descendants, those happy few who were doing their best to carry forward the banner of power pop. There were few things that got me immediately excited quite like big, buzzing guitars propping up ridiculously catchy hooks. Similarly, when power pop bands turned to ballads–the emotions were the part of the song turned up to eleven–they were crafting exactly the sorts of songs that I wanted when I was doing the late night shift … Continue reading One for Friday: Velvet Crush, “Faster Days”